How bees make honey
Honey is flower nectar that bees collect, thicken and store as food for the winter.
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One bee's output
1/12 of a teaspoon
A worker bee makes about a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her life. This is the usual estimate. A jar takes thousands of bees.
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From nectar to honey
80% to 18% water
Nectar is mostly water. Bees add enzymes and fan it with their wings until the water content falls below about 18%. At that point it keeps.
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Colony size
Up to 50,000 bees
A strong colony in summer has up to 50,000 bees. Almost all are workers, and all workers are female. The males, called drones, do not forage.
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Why flavours differ
Set by the flowers
Honey takes its flavour from the flowers the bees visited. Heather honey is dark and strong. Acacia honey is pale and mild.
Timeline
17 entries from about 7000 BC to today. Each note on the staff below is one entry. Select a note to jump to it, or select any picture to enlarge it.
Select a note to jump to an entry.
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c. 7000 BC
Prehistory
Wild honey is still collected this way. A Gurung honey hunter on a cliff in Nepal. Beeswax in Stone Age cooking pots
The oldest firm evidence that people used bee products is chemical. Beeswax leaves a residue in unglazed pottery that can still be identified thousands of years later.
A 2015 study tested more than 6,400 potsherds from early farming sites in Europe, the Near East and North Africa. Beeswax was found at many of them. The oldest traces came from Anatolia, in modern Turkey, and are about 9,000 years old.
Sources
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c. 6000 BC
Prehistory
A modern tracing of the painting at Cuevas de la Araña, Bicorp, Spain. A honey hunter painted on a rock wall
A rock shelter near Bicorp in Valencia, Spain, has a painting of a person hanging from ropes and reaching into a wild bees' nest with a basket. Bees are drawn flying around the figure.
The painting is usually dated to about 8,000 years ago. Rock art is difficult to date, so this is an estimate. It is the earliest known picture of someone collecting honey.
Sources
Where to see it: The caves can be visited with a guide from the Ecomuseo de Bicorp, Valencia.
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c. 2450 BC
Ancient world
The bee from a royal title, carved for Senusret I around 1950 BC. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Egyptians keep bees in hives
A carved relief from the sun temple of King Nyuserre at Abu Ghurab shows men working at hives, pouring honey and sealing it in jars. It is widely cited as the oldest picture of beekeeping.
The bee was also part of the king's title. Pharaoh was called "He of the Sedge and the Bee". The sedge plant stood for Upper Egypt and the bee for Lower Egypt.
Sources
- BookGene Kritsky, The Tears of Re: Beekeeping in Ancient Egypt (Oxford University Press)
- PhotoThe hieroglyph relief on Wikimedia Commons
Where to see it: The Nyuserre relief blocks were excavated for Berlin's Egyptian Museum around 1900.
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c. 1800 BC
Ancient world
The Malia bee pendant, 1800 to 1700 BC. Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. A gold bee pendant from Crete
This gold pendant shows two insects holding a drop of honey above a honeycomb. It is 4.6 cm wide and about 3,800 years old. It was found in 1930 in a cemetery at Malia on Crete.
The insects are usually identified as bees, although some scholars think they are wasps. The pendant shows the skill of Minoan goldsmiths and the importance of the subject to the people who made it.
Sources
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c. 1600 BC
Ancient world
Plates from the Edwin Smith Papyrus, written around 1600 BC. New York Academy of Medicine. Honey in the oldest surgical text
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is the oldest surviving surgical text. It describes 48 cases of wounds and fractures and how to treat them.
Several cases end with the same instruction: dress the wound with "grease, honey and lint every day until he recovers". Honey is acidic and low in water, which slows bacterial growth, so the treatment had a real effect.
Sources
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c. 1450 BC
Ancient world
Gathering Honey, Tomb of Rekhmire. Facsimile by Nina de Garis Davies. The Met, New York. A honey harvest on a tomb wall
Rekhmire was vizier, the most senior official, under two pharaohs. The walls of his tomb at Thebes show the work he supervised. One scene shows men taking comb from hives, using smoke to calm the bees, and sealing honey in jars.
Honey was valuable in Egypt. It was collected as tax, offered in temples and used in baking. In the 1920s the artist Nina de Garis Davies painted an exact copy of this scene for the Metropolitan Museum.
Sources
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c. 900 BC
Ancient world
Excavations at Tel Rehov, Israel, where the apiary was found. The oldest beehives found so far
At Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley, archaeologists excavated rows of clay cylinder hives stacked three high. They estimate the apiary held 100 to 200 hives. It stood in the middle of a town.
Charred remains of bees were found inside the hives. Their wing shape matches a subspecies from Anatolia, not the local one. This suggests the beekeepers imported bees from several hundred miles away.
Sources
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c. 650 BC
Ancient world
Gold plaques with a bee goddess, Kamiros, Rhodes, 7th century BC. British Museum, London. Bee goddess plaques from Rhodes
These gold plaques come from a grave at Kamiros on Rhodes. Each shows a winged woman whose lower body is a bee. Her identity is not known. She is often linked to the goddess Artemis.
Bees had religious meaning across the Greek world by this time. The priestess at Delphi was called "the Delphic bee" by the poet Pindar.
Sources
- MuseumBritish Museum collection: search the Kamiros gold plaques
- PhotoThe plaques on Wikimedia Commons (museum no. 1860,0404.123)
Where to see it: The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London. Entry is free.
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c. 370 BC
Ancient world
Silver tetradrachm of Ephesus, 370 to 360 BC. Münzkabinett, Berlin. Bees on Greek coins and in Roman poetry
The city of Ephesus used a bee as the emblem on its silver coins for several centuries. In the same period Aristotle recorded detailed observations of beehives in his History of Animals.
About 340 years later the Roman poet Virgil wrote Book 4 of the Georgics, a poem about farming, entirely on beekeeping. Like other ancient writers, he believed the largest bee in the hive was a king.
Sources
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c. 1250 to 1450
Middle Ages to 1600s
The Madrid Codex, shown here in the museum's display replica. Museo de América, Madrid. Maya beekeeping with stingless bees
Honeybees did not live in the Americas until Europeans brought them in the 1600s. The Maya kept a native stingless bee, xunan kab, in hollow logs. Some communities in Yucatán still do.
The Madrid Codex is one of four Maya books that survive. Its last ten pages are almanacs for the beekeeping year and show bee gods and hives.
Sources
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c. 1390
Middle Ages to 1600s
Honey, from a Tacuinum Sanitatis, late 1300s. Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome (MS 4182). Honey as Europe's main sweetener
Sugar was rare and expensive in medieval Europe, so honey was the usual sweetener. It was also fermented into mead. Beeswax was used for church candles.
This page is from a Tacuinum Sanitatis, an illustrated health handbook made in Italy. The entry is for "mel", the Latin for honey. The hives are woven straw baskets called skeps.
Sources
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c. 1568
Middle Ages to 1600s
The Beekeepers, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, about 1568. Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin. Bruegel draws beekeepers at work
Pieter Bruegel the Elder drew three beekeepers wearing heavy robes and woven wicker masks while they move skeps. The drawing is a detailed record of protective clothing before modern veils.
Skeps had a drawback. To remove the honey, the beekeeper usually had to break up the comb, and the colony was often killed. This was not solved until the 1850s.
Sources
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1609
Middle Ages to 1600s
The Bees' Madrigal, from the 1634 edition of The Feminine Monarchie. Wellcome Collection, London. Charles Butler says the hive has a queen
Charles Butler was a vicar in Hampshire. In 1609 he published The Feminine Monarchie, which argued that the large bee at the centre of the colony is female. Earlier writers had called it a king.
Butler was also a musician. Young queens make a piping sound before a swarm. He wrote the sound down in musical notation, and later editions include a four-part madrigal based on it.
Sources
- MuseumWellcome Collection: the 1634 edition, scanned in full
- DocumentRoyal Society blog on Butler and his bees
Where to see it: Wellcome Collection, Euston Road, London. Entry is free.
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1851 to 1865
Modern era
Lorenzo Langstroth at about 80. Langstroth designs the movable-frame hive
Lorenzo Langstroth was a minister in Philadelphia. He observed that bees leave gaps of just under a centimetre open as passages. They seal smaller gaps and build comb in larger ones. He called this distance "bee space".
He designed a hive in which every frame hangs one bee space from the next, so each comb can be lifted out without damage. In 1865 Franz Hruschka invented a centrifuge that spins honey out of the comb. Most hives today still follow this design.
Sources
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1939 to 1945
Modern era
Two beekeepers lift a frame from a hive in wartime Britain. Imperial War Museums. Sugar rationing and British beekeepers
Britain rationed sugar from January 1940. Beekeepers feed sugar syrup to their colonies to get them through winter, so rationing put hives at risk.
The government gave beekeepers a separate sugar allowance for each colony. MPs asked in Parliament in 1943 for the allowance to be increased.
Sources
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1973
Modern era
The waggle dance. The bee walks a figure of eight, and the central run gives the direction. A Nobel Prize for decoding the bee dance
Karl von Frisch showed that a honeybee tells other bees where to find food by dancing on the comb.
The angle of the dance shows the direction of the food relative to the sun. The length of the waggle section shows the distance. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work.
Sources
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1980s to today
Modern era
Mānuka in flower on Tiritiri Matangi Island, New Zealand, with a native bee. Mānuka research and medical honey
In the 1980s Peter Molan, a biochemist in New Zealand, began testing why honey from the mānuka bush keeps its antibacterial effect when other honeys lose it. In 2008 a team in Dresden identified the compound responsible, methylglyoxal. The MGO number on a jar measures it.
Hospitals now use sterilised, medical-grade honey dressings. Trials show a benefit for some burns. The evidence for other wounds is mixed. Honey sold as food is not sterile and should not be used on wounds.
Sources
Five common claims, checked
Open a claim to see whether it holds up and where the answer comes from.
Honey never goes off.Show answer
Mostly true
Sealed honey can last for decades. It has too much sugar, too little water and too much acid for most microbes to grow. Cloudy, grainy honey has crystallised and is safe to eat. Warming the jar gently makes it liquid again.
Archaeologists ate 3,000-year-old honey from a pharaoh's tomb.Show answer
Not proven
This story is repeated often, usually about Tutankhamun, and the details vary. We could not find an excavation report that supports it. Ancient honey has been identified in other finds from its pollen, including 4,300-year-old burial pots in Georgia.
The queen bee rules the hive.Show answer
Partly true
The queen lays the eggs and her scent keeps the colony together. She does not direct the workers. The workers decide when to swarm, where to nest and when to replace her.
Bees dance to give each other directions.Show answer
True
The waggle dance gives the direction and distance of a food source. Karl von Frisch won a Nobel Prize in 1973 for showing how it works.
Honey is safe for babies.Show answer
False
Babies under 12 months should not have honey. It can contain bacteria that cause infant botulism, which is rare but serious. Honey is safe after the first birthday.
Ten honeys to buy
A range of styles and prices, from a supermarket jar to single-origin honeys. UK prices were checked on 13 Nov 2026. Follow each link for the current price.
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1Rowse Pure & Natural Clear Honey
🇬🇧 Blend of EU and non-EU honeys, packed in the UK · 340g
The standard supermarket jar.
MildStrong
Mild, with a soft caramel flavour and a fruity note at the end. It is a blend of blossom honeys and a useful baseline for tasting the others on this list.
Goes well with: porridge, or baking flapjacks.
£3.00 Ocado
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2Black Bee Honey British Summer Honey
🏴 England, summer wildflowers · 227g
Raw, runny and traceable to one beekeeper.
MildStrong
Light gold and runny, with a rich floral flavour. Each jar comes from a single source, and the label gives the location and the beekeeper's name.
Goes well with: hot buttered toast, or a salad dressing.
£7.50 Black Bee Honey
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3Heather Hills Farm Scottish Heather Honey
🏴 Scottish Highlands, ling heather · 340g
Strong, malty and thick-set.
MildStrong
Intense and floral, with a malty finish and a thick, jelly-like set. Heather flowers for a few weeks in late summer, so the harvest is short.
Goes well with: porridge, or oatcakes with a sharp cheddar.
£10.95 Heather Hills Farm
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4Comvita Mānuka Honey UMF 10+
🇳🇿 New Zealand, mānuka bush · 250g
Dark, thick and earthy, with a grade on the label.
MildStrong
Dark and thick, with an earthy, slightly herbal flavour. UMF is an independent New Zealand quality mark and MGO is the methylglyoxal content, so UMF 10+ means at least MGO 263. Higher grades cost more.
Goes well with: eaten from the spoon, or stirred into warm lemon and ginger.
£31.99 is the regular price. It was on sale at £19.19 when we checked.
£31.99 Comvita
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5Odysea Greek Wild Thyme & Fragrant Herb Honey
🇬🇷 Central Greece, wild thyme and mountain herbs · 480g
Aromatic and herbal, from one named beekeeper.
MildStrong
Deep amber, aromatic and herbal. It is cold extracted and unfiltered, and comes from a single beekeeper who moves his hives to follow the wild thyme.
Goes well with: thick Greek yoghurt with walnuts.
£12.00 Odysea
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6Seggiano Chestnut Honey
🇮🇹 Tuscany, Italy, sweet chestnut · 500g
Dark, less sweet and slightly bitter.
MildStrong
Dark and only gently sweet, with a slightly bitter taste. It is a cold-extracted honey from a single flower source and it stays liquid.
Goes well with: pecorino or a blue cheese.
£12.45 Seggiano
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7Brindisa Alemany Orange Blossom Honey
🇪🇸 Spain, orange blossom · 250g
Floral and mild, with a citrus note.
MildStrong
Strongly floral to smell, then sweet and mild with a sharp citrus note. It is harvested in spring by Alemany, a honey producer in Catalonia.
Goes well with: fresh ricotta, or mint tea.
£7.95 Ocado
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8Napoleon Lavender Honey
🇫🇷 France, lavender · 275g
Golden, floral and gently herbal.
MildStrong
Golden and liquid, with a clear floral smell and a gently herbal flavour. It is packed by Miel Besacier, a French honey producer founded in 1905.
Goes well with: soft goat's cheese with walnuts and figs.
The retailer describes it as Provence lavender honey. It does not carry the protected Provence label.
£7.99 Sous Chef
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9The Tasmanian Honey Company Leatherwood Honey
🇦🇺 Tasmania, Australia, leatherwood tree · 350g tin
Strongly perfumed, spicy and floral.
MildStrong
Strongly perfumed, spicy and floral. It tastes very different from the other honeys on this list. The leatherwood tree grows wild only in Tasmania's rainforests.
Goes well with: blue cheese, or vanilla ice cream.
Sold by a marketplace seller on Amazon, so the price changes often.
£22.00 Amazon UK
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10Lote & Co Sidr Honey, Pure & Raw
🇾🇪 Yemen, according to the brand, sidr tree · 350g
Thick, dark and rich. The most expensive jar here.
MildStrong
Thick, dark and rich, and often compared to dates and toffee. Sidr honey comes from wild lote trees and is collected in small quantities. It is highly valued across the Arab world.
Goes well with: dates and tahini, or warm flatbread.
The origin is the brand's own description. We could not check it independently.
£29.99 Lote & Co
We have no connection with these brands and earn nothing if you buy. Mānuka grades (UMF and MGO) measure one antibacterial compound, not flavour. Honey is not suitable for babies under 12 months.